Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):
We’ve posted a response, sorry for the delay.
👉 https://lemmy.world/post/19264848 👈
Oh man this ones got some flavour to sink ones teeth into 😅
I take the side of the admin. If someone can’t accept or understand that a cat eats a meat based diet then they deserve to have reality thrown in their face. Better than some poor animals being tortured.
If someone can’t accept or understand that a cat eats a meat based diet then they deserve to have reality thrown in their face. Better than some poor animals being tortured.
Dang, is that what happened? It’s sad to think that there are people mistreating animals that they care about accidentally, through trying to apply their own human morals and rules to them.
Cats are hunters, they eat meat. If that’s an issue for your home then fair enough, your house your rules. Just don’t get a cat, or a carnivorous pet in general. There’s lots of cool pets out there that are herbivores :-)
I think it’s less applying their morals to the cat and more not wanting to support the meat industry. That said, yeah just don’t have a cat. I expect many vegans aren’t too big on the concept of pet ownership anyway.
Vegan here. Love my cat. My cat eats meat. End of story.
Wow, a normal person on the internet. Thank you for existing.
I don’t think this is the place for this discussion obviously but just know this subject has a lot of taboo and misinformation around it.
I recommend reading Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen if you are interested in digging deep into it.
What are Jed Gillan’s credentials? He has basically no search engine presence.
Maybe people should be consulting their vets before some random book they heard of online. anyone can publish a book.
I wrote a book about anuses through the ages and still don’t know if it should be anuses or anusi.
I think it’s anussy
No shit?
Cats aren’t just hunters. They’re obligate carnivores. That means they literally can’t get all the nutrients they need from a plant based diet. They need the vitamin A in meat in the same way that we need vitamin C.
I think all of this says more about the faith people have in the quality of their cat food.
Also people seem to love the words obligate carnivore but have not much understanding of the concept.
Oh and lastly, my favorite is discounting all evidence as anecdotal or “not good research”.
This is some of the stupidest dogpiling ive seen and really drives home how simple the average person on here is.
“Hur dur, if people talk about the possibility of a vegan cat then surely their owners will starve them and refuse to change course until they die!”
then ask your vet what they think.
But but vets are the part of the secret big pharma illuminati mafiaaa graaagruru!!!
Anytime I see someone use mocking to make point I completely write them off, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
That is completely unnecessary, explain your thoughts like an adult. This isn’t twitter
Why have a pet cat then. There are many herbivores that make great pets.
Because they then probably read somewhere that rabbits like steak based diet and we have the whole thing all over again.
I’m just going to go ahead and stir this pot since I love cats.
~2003 Vegan roommate rented a room at my warehouse in one of the shittier parts of Oakland. Neat guy, lot’s of esoteric hobbies, bare him no ill will.
Watch vegan roommate mix up grey goo with water and microwave. Ask what is goo?
Goo is vegan cat food for Soni-chan that roommate gets from wise internet-vegans. Goo contains all essential nutrients and vitamins for vegan cat.
I mumbled something about cats being obligate carnivores without really knowing what it means. Vegan roommate clearly loves Soni-chan and Soni-chan loves vegan roommate.
Fast forward 1 month.
I don’t see the cat much, it stays in his room. I tell him he’s free to let it roam around the warehouse. Vegan roommate says he’s worried that the cat will slip outside… this seems sensible, it’s a small warehouse with roll up doors and no real way to keep a cat from escaping.
Fast forward 2 more months.
I come home one day. Hear vegan roommate sobbing loudly in his room.
Wait a few minutes, because privacy. Knock on door.
Soni-chan has become sick and died.
I offer what comfort I can and leave vegan roommate to grieve. Vegan roommate and friend drive to Los Angeles to bury cat in mother’s back yard. I am very sad.
Vegan roommate returns and accuses other roommate of poisoning cat. Says cat was happy and healthy for years living at victorian house in San Francisco. Cat only started to get sick after moving to warehouse.
I asked vegan roommate if vegan cat was inside/outside cat in San Francisco? Vegan roommate says yes!
My conclusion. Vegan’s are fucking morons. Except for that one guy up there in the comments who loves his cat… oh, and all the other vegans who aren’t complete ass douches… now please go away. 
I understand you’re being dogpiled, but stay away from personal insults.
I had no idea what this one was about. I got banned a few months ago for insisting in c/vegan that animals that eat a predominantly carnivorous diet should not be fed a vegan diet. I’m a cat lover and dog liker and believe that it is animal abuse. I’m glad to see this change.
Try reading some current information on it. It can be healthy for a cat to be vegan if it is done correctly.
The most difficult part is quote a lot of cats are picky to the point they won’t eat the one or two brands that are actually nutritionally complete.
Its absurd they are banning even the discussion of this when research keeps trending towards the possibility of a healthy vegan cat.
Mostly, I think its absurd to think these discussions will actually hurt real cats. If the owner is basing their information on this websites shitposters, they are already a horrible owner.
Try reading some current information on it.
Oh no no no, we don’t play that game here. If you’re trying to convince someone of your argument, the burden of providing reputable and scientifically accurate evidence is on YOU and you only.
And only if the other side won’t accept scientific evidence then you can blame them.
I’m not saying cats can’t be vegan but to the best of my knowledge their diet must be meat based. As it is you who are trying to convince me (and others) cats can be vegan, it is also you who must provide the evidence.
Something like this then? https://plos.altmetric.com/details/154121408/news
These articles say that cat nutrition must be strictly carnivore.
I also belive that. But I have to add that those were press articles written by journalists who, most likely, have no veterinary nor scientific training.
Only reputable peer reviewed articles are to be trusted. If the opinion of vegan-cats must be proven this way, it has to be done the other way around.
No, the first post was about that. This post is about how we aren’t allowed to have this conversation out loud.
I do have studies I can send you, I’m sure you know you can find studies all along the spectrum for most topics. I dont have the experience to defend the studies myself though but if you would like I can send you some to look over.
This whole post is frustrating because vegans are trying to reduce animal harm, and then get accused of harming their pets. Of course there are a handful of stories of people who tried a whole food diet and hurt their cats but not a single person recommended that, and multiple vegans correctly advised against it.
The point is that maybe we can trust that vegans of all people would be considerate of animal well being as best as they can, including trying healthier diets in the effort to prolong their lives.
Believe it or not a lot of people here (including me) had no knowledge about that issue before this announcement was posted.
And my comment is referring to one very specific “thread” from your comment. Yes, you’re discussing other issues in your comment, but they’re at best only vaguely related to that first sentence.
the issue is not intent. i believe you have good intentions. i do not believe that average people, even vegans, have enough knowledge on cat dietary needs and health to do it safely.
even professional plant-based cat food makers can’t reliably make food that meets AAFCO standards for cat nutrients. that’s why the FDA advises against it.
https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/vegetarian-diets/
https://europeanpetfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Updated-Nutritional-Guidelines.pdf
Like any animal, you are able to supply some essential amino acids and essential fatty acids along with other bioavailable micronutrients(plant based pro-vitamin A without modification is out) through artificial or specifically formulated sources. Asking for scientific journals is silly in my opinion because those without a biology background wouldn’t understand them (and even what I just posted would likely be hard to understand for most), but pointing out that pet food industry experts and vet nutritionists consider it a plausible goal and have specific nutrition profiles they follow for it should be enough.
I consider the whole effort silly myself, but I’m a meat eater. Doesn’t mean that it isn’t data driven.
That first link is giving off strong vibes of trying to satisfy stubborn ass vegans who are going to do it anyways and trying to save a few cats lives.
The entire thing can be summed up as “Please don’t fucking do this, but if you insist consult a vet nutritionist because if you get anything wrong your cat will die”
If someone is a vegan, then they just shouldn’t have a cat as imposing dietary choices that the cat (or other animal) wouldn’t make goes against their own morals by being vegan in the first place.
Even for dogs, yes they are omnivores, but they won’t choose to not eat meat See: That one years old clip from a talk show with a vegan guest who said “Their dog is a total vegan and won’t even want to eat meat” and when tested on the show the dog went straight for the meat dish instead of the vegan one
This is not specific to cats. If you plan to formulate your own food for a pet, you need input from a vet and a nutritionist, or else risk hurting your animal. Plenty of people cooking fresh food for their dogs are not giving them a full nutrient profile either.
I think this is showing how much faith people have in regular commercial pet food. Normal pet food isnt great for your pets, look into what the ingredients actually are and their quality.
The only reason the idea of vegan food for cats and dogs came about was in an effort to make them healthier and happier animals. Its not to force a vegans morals onto an animal.
I’m vegan and I have a cat. My vet approved the vegan food for a trial but the cat didnt like it, so she eats meat now. If thats abusive to you then I’m not sure what to say.
Tell me why my entire vet office approved of this trial if its animal abuse always. The discussions here on this site simply dont match the discussions youll find if you talk to a vet or an animal nutritionist.
I think this is showing how much faith people have in regular commercial pet food. Normal pet food isnt great for your pets, look into what the ingredients actually are and their quality.
Not stepping into the vegan drama here, just wanted to chime in here about cat food. Two of my three family cats growing up had terrible kidney issues in their elder years. It turns out that - even setting aside the grains and fillers added to kibble - dry food is bad for cats unless they drink a ton of water with it.
Domestic cats are descended from desert wildcats that obtained most of their water content from their prey, and they inherited a low natural thirst drive because of this. Kidney issues are common if cats don’t get enough moisture in their diet, and since they instinctively hide symptoms of illness, you might not notice anything is wrong until it’s too late.
Kibble became the norm because a) most people are used to dogs and b) it’s cheaper and way more convenient than canned food (which is a messy bacterial magnet that can’t be safely left out for more than an hour). If anyone reading this feeds their cat exclusively dry food, consider switching to at least a partially wet food diet or buying a cat fountain (the sound of flowing water entices some cats to drink more often). Watching your beloved family members suffer from kidney failure is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
I think this is showing how much faith people have in regular commercial pet food. Normal pet food isnt great for your pets, look into what the ingredients actually are and their quality.
firstly, you can’t just say the entire “regular” pet food industry is of poor quality and bad for your pets. it’s not a monolith. if you want to criticize poor quality pet food by all means go ahead, but it’s not like switching to a vegan food automatically fixes that. if anything you’re more likely to get food lacking in nutrients if you go plant based.
secondly you can’t just say “look what the ingredients actually are” which is ingredient list fear mongering. of course average people are going to see a few ingredients they don’t recognize, but everything on there has been studied and approved as safe by the FDA. so what specifically in “regular” pet food do you think is so bad?
*remembered what instance I’m logged into and I’m not switching accounts so I can be rude
I agree that the entire effort is silly, but that doesn’t mean it’s either directly lethal or animal abuse like people are so insistent. It’s not as black and white as Lemmy’s popular opinion wants it to be to fuel their moral outrage.
directly lethal
It’s literally directly lethal and abuse for a cat if you mess up on a nutrient. Unlike omnivores, if you miss or are deficient in a critical nutrient for them their body cannot make it to compensate, it MUST be obtained through food or they will die. In the wild, they have evolutionary instincts to seek these nutrients out, instincts they are prevented from acting on by being a domestic pet.
It’s not as black and white as Lemmy’s popular opinion wants it to be to fuel their moral outrage.
Well put
The website says:
The cat is an obligate carnivore and has highly exacting nutritional needs, for this reason we advise owners to think very carefully before providing a vegetarian diet for their cats, and to ensure they get advice from a veterinary nutritionist.
There is some commercial ‘complete’ vegetarian cat food available on the market. If a cat owner is intending to feed one of these products, we would recommend the owner discusses this option with their vet in the context of the individual needs of their cat.
And then explains why it’s a bad idea…
And you’re using this as a source for feeding cats a vegan diet?
(and even what I just posted would likely be hard to understand for most),
You’re drastically underestimating people if you think they couldn’t understand that, but then again you did, and I didn’t expect that
I’m using that as a source saying that it’s possible and something worth discussing, yes. I picked that source because their metrics tend to be of the authorities that are used in subsequent scientific studies evaluating the adequacy of vegetarian cat food.
The fact that you can read the plain language about both the challenges and market availability and yet come to the conclusion that they are ruling it out as a possibility kind of makes my point to the lack of understanding.
that it’s possible
That’s not what your link is saying though
They flat out say ‘complete’ vegan cat food isn’t complete.
And youre saying that the fact a grifter sells it means it won’t kill a cat
Any further attempt to explain this or anything else is going to be time wasted.
Have a good life
I refuse to write more than a paragraph in response to this because it isn’t worth the effort, but you’re wrong, your own sources say you’re wrong, and if you’re truly concerned about animals well being make super sure you never own one.
Serinus
Who the fuck is “European Pet Food.org”? You want us to believe pet food manufacturers when they say manufactured pet food is good?
I don’t actually have a firm belief in either side in this. I haven’t seen valid sources saying either thing. One side keeps linking very obviously vegan-biased bullshit, and the other side posts ChatGPT made up studies bullshit.
Considering their standards are some of what are used for research articles that are published for the suitability of pet food, I consider them credible. A research article is what directed me to them in the first place.
I’m glad you consider them credible. Extra convenient, that is.
So there is a study that shows that forcing your quest for a sense of absolute moral superiority on a obligate or fecultative carnivore by feeding them an unnatural vegan diet may not kill them?
The issue is choice and the fact that you are taking it away. Obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat because that is what they evolved to eat and you are taking that away from them. These studies that say it may not be unhealthy are simply efforts to feed the self-satisfied circle jerk. Efforts to develop a vegan food that obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat are efforts to overcome their nature which is to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
Animal abuse.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
To be fair, we do this to pets all the time. What makes it abuse is if it’s harmful to them, not that we’re forcing it onto them.
Obviously but you can’t claim absolute moral superiority when you’re taking choice away from another living being. The argument is more about bursting the self-satisfied bubble than it is about any real issue.
It’s pretty hard to force a diet on a cat, especially if it is let outside. My family had cats when I was a kid. They could go outside when they pleased. Usually they came home at dinner time. Sometimes they stayed away for days or weeks, then came home. On a few occasions they never came back. Whether they met with unpleasant fates, found new human caretakers, or decided to live in the wild, we have no way to know. In any case though, staying with us was entirely optional for them and they usually but not always took the option. In fact they sometimes tried to feed us, by bringing home dead mice and squirrels and dropping them in front of us. (I don’t think we ever ate any).
Where is the choice being taken away? We offered them a commercial catfood diet and let them take it or leave it. Veganism didn’t come into this (we had never heard of veganism at that time) but that is irrelevant.
I said the same thing somewhere else. My cats can leave whenever they want. They don’t.
You should make that clear in your post, because you currently appear to be arguing that owning pets is animal abuse.
That’s quite a leap you’re making there. Given that I’m not making that leap with you I will leave you to it. Enjoy.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
Animal abuse.
I’m not a vegan, but it really cracks me up when people get up in arms about this subject they barely understand and arrive at the position that pet ownership/meat eating itself is unethical because it removes animal agency. Like, you’re making an ethically vegan argument you know.
I think that’s the point, the ethically vegan argument is not to own a pet that eats meat, and it’s odd these particular vegans in the channel couldn’t see it, and all the non vegans were pointing it out.
Pet ownership in general is not vegan, even if you gaslight yourself into calling them companions.
I’m not going to construct a straw man to dunk on all vegans without knowing their particular situation. I will, however, respond to absolutely silly and inconsistent arguments.
But you did construct a strawman which I addressed. Anecdotally the bit about pets for vegans being “companions” came directly from the person who posted the initial thread calling out rookie (which by the way, rookie seems like kinda of a jerk and probably shouldn’t be making decisions like these).
An animal is incapable of providing any consent, they are incapable of understanding the ethical choices a vegan may make, or the reasons behind it. The fact that instead of many viable alternatives, they selfishly choosing to keep an animal that would need to have those choices made for them is an ethical problem in their own philosophy.
These vegans choose to keep a cute kitty or puppy, even old and sick kitties and puppies are cute and rewarding, for selfish reasons. If you truly need to keep an animal, keep a vegan pet. Then you don’t need to participate in the food system, and a non-vegan pet owner can provide for the animal best suited to their lifestyle.
Like there is an understanding that engaging in the meat industry, even on the fringes, perpetuates that industry hurting animals. The same is true for pets, even good pet owners engage and support a system where by animals are exploited and hurt, even if it’s not THEIR animal. I don’t see why this is so hard, honestly.
Radical veganism is extremism. Extremism is about a sense of absolute superiority and the ability to self-absolve. Vegan extremists are the same as every other type of extremist in that sense.
You’re the one making radical inflexible arguments here with an air of supremacy and lack of nuance while self absolving, hoss. That’s why what you’re saying is ethically inconsistent. You should take your own advice.
“No you are!”
Good one.
…but it really cracks me up when people get up in arms about this subject they barely understand and arrive at…
Pot: meet kettle.
Ah you’re a committed follower of our resident veterinary nutrition scientist and his opinions on “fecultative” carnivores and his extensive literature review of “I don’t believe that shit”, huh?
You are welcome to group me with whomever you like. It doesn’t change the statement.
Hey admins. This one right here…
If the owner is basing their information on this websites shitposters, they are already a horrible owner.
Incredibly L take and I am now confident the rest of your statements in this thread are unlikely to be factually correct.
Try reading some current information on it.
This isn’t the place to reopen misinformation; please keep the hogwash on the appropriate channel.
this whole thread is gonna be an instance in-joke isn’t it
I believe you in saying it’s possible if your cat isn’t a picky eater. However, what do most pet cats eat per day, 100 to 200 calories a day? Pet food is usually made with the cuts that didn’t make it into people food. I understand why people choose to be vegans (I see this choice almost like a religious choice). Making a few cats vegan doesn’t really help the “vegan cause.” Plus, there’s no point in forcing animals in making ethical choices.
I’m honestly not sure if a vegan cat diet is possible or not, but random people giving unqualified advice that could easily lead a less knowledgeable person to harm an animal is a problem. What should have been done in this case is for a mod or admin to shut the discussion down with a note telling people to consult a qualified veterinarian regarding any change to their pets diet.
I blocked all those vegan subs when this shit happened, they were already pretty bad tho.
Like if someone posted:
I’m not vegan but am looking to eat less meat
They were banned, so I figured out I was better off blocking than stumbling in one day.
But the original was just talking about feeding cats human vegan food. Then after admins stepped in, some mod went and found a single research article that said it could be possible with supplements…
But I think the supplements came from animals anyways?
So they advocated for something that would harm pets, then found the absolute bare minimum “proof” that in a very narrow situation no one was doing it might not harm the animal “significantly”.
It legit seems like they’re just trolling and trying to make vegans seem insufferable
It’s not. Cats have a super high protein requirement. So much that dogs and humans can die from kidney failure if they eat only cat food.
This is less likely to help the cat than someone also saying the actual diet requirements
i don’t think you can say that for sure. best case you just get into a shouting match where most people will get lost in the weeds of logical fallacies.
Right, but to an outside observer, they either see “vegan diets are fine” and “ask your vet”, or they see “vegan diets are fine”, “vegan diets are very bad”, and “ask your vet”. One creates a sense of uncertainty and tells you to ask an expert; the other creates a greater sense of consensus for the more dangerous opinion.
My idea was that respectful, dissenting opinions posted in a small ratio should be allowed in all communities.
It works well in this situation because you can have ten vegans posting about how vegan diets are great for cats, but you’d still have at least one guy posting “This isn’t safe for your cat. Please find sources that aren’t biased before doing this.”
I don’t know if a vegan diet is safe for cats or not, and I shouldn’t need to. Having that one dissenting voice is helpful in prompting people not to trust everything they read on the internet. c/flatearth can still have their narrative, but a policy like this would help put the brakes on it a little.
Of course, do consider this policy in a community that you agree with. This would mean that someone would be allowed to post Russian propaganda in the Ukraine community. If they spam it, it can still be removed. If they’re rude, it can be removed. But if it’s just one Russian comment for every ten comments refuting it, I would hope the ten comments are enough to handle it.
“dissenting opinions” are not the same as mis/disinformation.
It’s just alternate information.
Drinking bleach to kill a disease is technically alternative information. It’s even backed indirectly by science: bleach kills bacteria. The difference here is the information is harmful, incorrect, and being presented as science backed.
Simply put- just because an echo chamber wants to drink the Kool aid - doesn’t mean we should allow them to share it with unwitting passerbys.
Not everyone is going to do the due diligence and assume that the group is wrong: so it is potentially damaging to allow that misinformation to be spread. Multiple examples exist of why moderation is needed.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. If it limits others freedom, it must be checked. If it can harm others, it must be checked.
Show me a study that shows any human or animal benefits in anyway from drinking bleach.
However, there does exist a spectrum of studies both supporting and attacking the idea of a vegan diet for cats, often with contradictory conclusions.
From my understanding there was a nuanced discussion including risks and acknowledging that whole food diets are impossible for cats.
Either people are reacting with emotion far more than I expected, or people are confusing whole food plant based with “no meat products in it”, which of course are two entirely different sets of food.
The admin was childish and obtuse, they could have handled this in a number of other ways and instead doubled down on their emotional reaction and instincts.
Show me a study that shows any human or animal benefits in anyway from drinking bleach.
There are plenty of papers out there which have supported incorrect and dangerous claims. I trust you are capable of getting the parallel I was drawing without derailing the conversation.
However, there does exist a spectrum of studies both supporting and attacking…
Yes this is how scientific academia works. It is also constantly flooded with bad science and bad faith research from focus groups pushing agendas. Let’s perhaps allow research to fully mature before committing to forcing your life choice on another organism, yeah?
From my understanding there was a nuanced discussion including risks and acknowledging that whole food diets are impossible for cats.
Nuanced discussion is most certainly not what that thread, nor this one are littered with.
Either people are reacting with emotion far more than I expected, or people are confusing whole food plant based with “no meat products in it”, which of course are two entirely different sets of food.
Nobody is telling a vegan they cannot adhere their diet to their choice. The reason people are reacting is because vegans are pushing their life choice onto an animal they willingly adopted knowing it’s dietary needs: simply because it makes them feel better. That is assanine and absolutely should be concerning to anyone.
Explicitly though, that won’t be what happens, particularly for something as small as the Fediverse. What happens is a post from a small community ends up on the main feed and the prevailing opinion of the entire Fediverse begins a long chain of comments about how dissenting opinions are dumb.
Conversely the community could be feeding incorrect information to the entire main feed.
If your community is unable to handle something as basic as a dissenting opinion - through civil discussion - there is a problem with your community. There are innumerable diets out there: ask yourself why you don’t see their lifestyle coming under fire. You can’t pick fights and then cry foul because you are the minority.
Are vegans all awful people? No. Of course not. But there are a significant number who elevate their lifestyle to a religious status and feel compelled to preach and inflict it on others. THAT is unacceptable.
Why are you so quick to move people into the bad vegan category? Sounds like a lot of people are just using this to confirm their belief that vegans are crazy and they should continue eating meat without a care.
I think I get it. If its possible a cat could be healthy and vegan, then humans have no excuse left do they.
Self preservation at its finest.
Not who you were responding to, but it’s the insufferable self-righteousness on display here that convinces others to apply the “bad vegan” label. Insofar as an animal or child is able to thrive on a given diet, feed yours whatever you want. I couldn’t possibly give a fuck. I don’t need to hide behind carnivorous cats as an excuse. I’m going to continue eating as I want and offering no excuses for it. Good day.
Why are you so quick to move people into the bad vegan category?
Considering your borderline unhinged responses throughout this thread… I think that should be self answering.
Sounds like a lot of people are just using this to confirm their belief that vegans are crazy…
See above.
…and they should continue eating meat without a care.
Nobody takes issue with vegetarians, paleo, or any of the innumerable other dietary choices… why do you suppose that is?
Why are you suggesting that people who choose to have a different diet than your preference need to change at all? I personally could care less what you choose to eat- that’s your choice… however:
I think I get it. If its possible a cat could be healthy and vegan, then humans have no excuse left do they.
When you are responsible for a dependant, be that a child or a pet, it is your responsibility to care for them properly. If you think you should beat a child: someone should stop you.
Onus probandi.. We have 100s of years of evidence that cats and their kin eat meat and will become ill and die without it. The fact that a “strictly vegan” diet needs to resort to synthetics to arrive at “maybe good enough” because those nutrients are not available from your diets sources says enough. Many other vegans have made much more reasonable statements throughout this thread that don’t rely on emerging research to support their decision to force their life choice on other animals.
Self preservation at its finest.
Exactly what are we preserving here… or are you just adding a quip that you think will elevate your stance?
Yeah, fully agreed.
And beyond the specific situation - as disgusting as it is to let a dependent animal suffer because of a belief it doesn’t even hold - it also shows a very basic lack of self-reflection ability if, even faced with backlash, one cannot realize why others would be appalled by such opinions.
The idea of Obligate Carnivore is fully lost on some. And that’s quite a sad reality.
The idea of Obligate Carnivore is fully lost on some. And that’s quite a sad reality.
It seems to me that a lot of people are using that term without knowing what it means. That, too, is a sad reality. It means that cats in the wild aren’t able to live off non-meat sources that they can find there, similar to how humans can’t live in subfreezing temperatures without shelter or clothing. It says nothing about whether their dietary needs can be fulfilled without meat in a domestic environment. Maybe yes, maybe no, but you can’t just parrot the words “obligate carnivore” like a Fox News anchor and act like that gives you the answer. The world is more complicated than that.
In fact, based on other info, cats do seem to be able to survive on human-supplied vegan diets, but it’s less clear that they can enjoy optimal health on such a diet. So the reality seems to be somewhat shaded.
Even for humans, being a well-nourished vegan is somewhat difficult (you have to pay attention to stuff like protein combination). It’s even harder to be a so-called “raw vegan” (living entirely from uncooked vegetables such as in salads) but apparently it can still be done. Most human vegans consume a lot of beans and grains that are inedible without cooking.
You can imagine an animal species for which cooked beans and grains would be a completely healthy diet, and yet that diet is never seen in the wild because wild animals don’t cook. Thus they would get their protein instead from animal sources, i.e. be obligate carnivores, even though they would be fine on steamed rice and tofu. There is no logical incompatibility between “obligate carnivore” and “vegan diet”. It’s a question of biology that is species specific. In the limit, you could inagine a Star Trek replicator synthesizing perfect mouse meat from pure carbon and other elements, giving you a completely healthy and satisfied vegan cat that thinks it is eating freshly killed mice.
It doesn’t appear possible for humans to stay healthy for long periods as fruitarians (some people don’t want to cut or kill living plants for food, but instead live off of fruits and nuts that have naturally fallen off the plants). But that can only be known through experimental observation, not linguistic knee jerks. You have to examine the details to understand the real situation for any particular species, food type, and preparation method
Obligate and facultative carnivores. Don’t forget the dogs.
“feculate carnivore” returns no results on google. Oblate carnivore returns results for obligate carnivores, looks to be that obligate/oblate is used interchangeably?
I haven’t heard either of these terms as a native English speaker. Perhaps they are regional terms, or terms from another language?
Obligate and facultative. Thanks for correcting me.
Facultative means optionally in response to circumstance.
Facultative carnivore, a carnivore that does not depend solely on animal flesh for food but also can subsist on non-animal food.
Yes, they will optionally eat non-meat in response to circumstance but their diet consist largely of meat and they will choose meat when it is available.
Oh, I was just suggesting the correct word as you said fecultative and I don’t think that’s a thing.
Sure, explain it to me. What is it that a cat can’t get from non-meat sources?
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Regular cat food is food made in the lab combined with such low grade meat that humans can’t eat it.
It turns out that pet diets all around are poorly understood by average people, who regularly shorten their cats lives or cause illnesses.
It turns out that it might be beneficial to work towards better health for our pets, whether thats with vegan food or not.
Vegans are only considering the food for their cats in an effort to make them healthier and happier.
Contrary to the common post here, this topic is not settled science. Anyone acting like it is simply refusing to allow themselves to hear out a perspective they instintually feel repulsed by.
Side note: funny how the most taboo subject on lemmy isnt something like incest or rape, its vegan cats.
Regular cat food is food made in the lab combined with such low grade meat that humans can’t eat it.
That’s literally false, stop spreading easily debunkable misinformation. The meat in cat food is completely safe to eat for humans, it is just not recommended to eat cat food regularly because the nutrients are formulated for, go figure, cats.
It’s true that pet food can be made from animal sources and cuts of meat that humans usually don’t want, because humans (especially those of us in western nations like the US) are spoiled and picky. But that’s actually a good thing; it means we are using the meat we get from slaughtered animals efficiently.
It turns out that pet diets all around are poorly understood by average people, who regularly shorten their cats lives or cause illnesses.
because animal diets are really well understood by people who make the food. in fact we understand pet/livestock diet even better than human diet because it’s easier to test diets on animals. if you simply buy food your vet recommends your pets will have an excellent diet. average people just don’t need to know any more than that.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34438805/
Nutrients most commonly found insufficient were: sulfur amino acids, taurine, arachidonic acid, EPA and DHA, calcium phosphorus and vitamin D. There were no nutrients unable to be provided from non-animal sources. Compliance with labelling guidelines was also poor, similar to other findings with commercial animal-based pet products. The results from this study indicate areas where producers of plant-based pet foods must improve to meet the industry recommended nutrient profiles and labelling requirements.
so plant based pet foods are actually less reliable than meat based ones, because it’s much harder to account for all the nutrients missing that usually come from meat. It may be theoretically possible to do, but it hasn’t been put into practice and proven yet, which is why no one should be recommending it.
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Vegans are only considering the food for their cats in an effort to make them healthier and happier.
Yeah no. But it takes a big mental effort to push yourself into that belief, so cheers. 🥂
It must be really difficult to admit that there are, surprisingly, asshole vegans, too. Like those who push their human choice of diet onto their pets without thinking about it, glorifying their superiority complex to a degree that hurts another living being, the very thing they say they want to avoid.
Contrary to the common post here, this topic is not settled science.
Except, well, it is. But hey, don’t let reality stop you from your funny stories.
Except, well, it is.
The most scientific thing I’ve seen out of all of this is a survey of pet owners where vegans say their cats are healthier than other cats. I’m not considering a survey conclusive evidence.
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Yeah that’s kinda what I mean. There are people who study this shit. There are decades and decades of experience. There are professionals that can check off both of the previous points.
And yet somehow people go all “it’s not a solved science” and then have degraded their understanding of science to a survey among biased amateurs. Just wow. Social media is damaging society faster than we can keep track of it, it seems.
I work towards better health for my pets by feeding them human grade meat. Happy?
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None of these article titles go anywhere when searched on google.
The articles from the Journal of Animal Science can’t be found on this archive: link
Do you have the DOI for any of these articles?
It seems like it should be easy to find real studies showing vegan diets are bad for cats. I hope this isn’t AI generated.
Separately, I checked this one and it doesn’t exist.
This study, published in the Journal of Animal Science, evaluated the nutritional adequacy of a commercial vegan cat food. The authors found that the food was deficient in taurine, arachidonic acid, and vitamin A, and recommended that cats should not be fed this diet.
Source: Biourge, V., et al. “Nutritional evaluation of a commercial vegan cat food.” Journal of Animal Science 96.12 (2018): 4441-4451.
So then this comment is literally misinformation but it’s almost guaranteed to stay up because it’s pro-carnism.
🤭
You got it. I even reported it.
For what it’s worth I’m not even vegetarian. I’m interested in pet health and there really isn’t any studies I can find saying vegan cat food is bad for cats… which I found very surprising. My cat is diabetic so I can only feed her prescription food anyway.
This is so obviously generated by GPT, none of these articles exist.
Is this Chat GPT? So a bunch of made up papers?
Edit: Not that I give a shit about the downvotes, but come on. Give me a link to one of them. Just one. They even left the “Here are some studies…” AI red flag in there.
You were right. I attempted to verify one. It looks good, and it’s close, but it doesn’t exist.
This study, published in the Journal of Animal Science, evaluated the nutritional adequacy of a commercial vegan cat food. The authors found that the food was deficient in taurine, arachidonic acid, and vitamin A, and recommended that cats should not be fed this diet.
Source: Biourge, V., et al. “Nutritional evaluation of a commercial vegan cat food.” Journal of Animal Science 96.12 (2018): 4441-4451.
The author exists. The journal exists. In fact, the author did something similar, I think for dogs. But those page numbers don’t line up, and the article title doesn’t exist.
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I apologize, because I was assuming and did delete the comment after checking myself. It was unfair to you for me to have done it that way.
But the articles literally don’t exist. It’s 2024, do we still have to explain that chatbots can generate nonexistent “scientific” references?
Ok but my meme was funny so clearly I win the conversation /s
Why dont we try a more recent one?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860667/
Summary: In this review, we conducted a formal assessment of the evidence in the form of a systematic review. We found that there has been limited scientific study on the impact of vegan diets on cat and dog health. In addition, the studies that have been conducted tended to employ small sample sizes, with study designs which are considered less reliable in evidence-based practice. Whilst there have been several survey studies with larger sample sizes, these types of studies can be subject to selection bias based on the disposition of the respondents towards alternative diets, or since answers may relate to subjective concepts such as body condition. However, there is little evidence of adverse effects arising in dogs and cats on vegan diets. In addition, some of the evidence on adverse health impacts is contradicted in other studies. Additionally, there is some evidence of benefits, particularly arising from guardians’ perceptions of the diets. Given the lack of large population-based studies, a cautious approach is recommended. If guardians wish to implement a vegan diet, it is recommended that commercial foods are used.
As someone who has worked in science, this passes the sniff test.
That is, science isn’t perfect, at all and is a constant process. Trying to win an argument by “citing the science” is often unscientific, however problematic it is that this can be leveraged by unscientific folks pushing an agenda.
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Is that what this is about? Anyone that can’t grasp nutrition concepts that an 8 year old can understand, shouldn’t be taking care of any living being
Edit: After reading more into it, I realise I was wrong. In the past, I had heard of people trying vegan diets with cats and they ended up dying, hence my original opinion. It is apparently not that clear cut. I still don’t think it’s a good idea to put a cat on a vegan diet unless it’s necessary.
Respectfully, I believe this incident serves more as a learning opportunity for the admin team rather than a reason to amend the rules.
This isn’t the first time I’ve observed Rooki acting inappropriately for an admin of a community. As an admin of a (admittedly much smaller) corner of the internet, I’ve learned to interact with users in a way that is polite and ensures they feel safe and heard. This is at least the second instance where I’ve seen Rooki respond emotionally and rather adversarially towards users, which has, in my view, undermined their credibility, to the point that I hope to avoid future interactions with them.
I understand that managing LW, one of the largest and general-purpose instances, especially with Lemmy’s still rather limited moderation tools, is challenging, and I appreciate the hard work all of you, including Rooki, put into maintaining it and making it run as smoothly as it does. I’m NOT asking for their removal; however, considering that this is not the first time I’ve seen Rooki behave uncivilly and antagonistically towards users, I hope that this will be a formative experience for them.
(Edit for clarity)
Thank you for this comment.
I’ve interacted with Rooki a few times, most of them were nice, but I’ve also seen Rooki being indeed unicivilly and antagonistically towards users.
Let’s see what the update brings.
Just want to pitch in as an outsider that I too have experienced Rooki acting inappropriately and frankly immaturely. This has happened multiple times and it doesn’t give a good light to the rest of the Lemmy.world administration that they seemingly tolerate Rookis behaviour. It’s not up to me, especially as I am not even a lemmy.world user, but in my opinion Rooki should not be an admin following these incidents.
I’ve experienced Rooki acting inappropriately and immaturely as well. This recent incident is part of a pattern of behavior.
Thank you for being understanding about it 🙏
If you won’t admit Rookie made a mistake then it makes the whole site/team look bad.
Amending the rules puts out a message of: “we were right the whole time but you all just didnt understand it”.
It’s great that the admins are putting so much effort into getting this right.
Sadly, I don’t think this is the way. Adding this to the ToS means you admins will always be in the centre of every unwinnable situation that arises.
You need a committee to deal with these issues on a case by case basis. There are many advantages to this:
- You can be tough but flexible and adaptive
- you can enlist the help of people with more time
- you can enlist the help of people with experience writing policies
- committee members can resign or be discontinued when they become embroiled in some shit storm.
- you can retain veto power
I don’t want to be critical of the ToS because someone has put a lot of thought into it, but the most charitable thing I can say is that its unlikely to serve its intended purpose.
Walk into a vet office and tell them you want your cat to eat a vegan diet and watch their eyes roll at the speed of sound out of their skull
The biggest issue with Reddit and Facebook was that they let stuff like this stick around it and eventually consume it.
It’s a good policy imho, and I’m happy to see it
Science should prevail
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your (the site admin’s) interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
Leaving the rules open to interpretation only leads to disagreements and arguments. It is better for users to have concrete rules with a reliably consistent correct interpretation than for everyone to complain because their interpretation of a rule lets them do whatever they want. Just my two cents on that.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
This might be a language-barrier thing, but that’s the meaning of “open for interpretation”.
It means that the admins and moderators are judging it on a per-case basis instead of a hard delineation that anybody could use to decide whether something is against the rules or not (and hence use technicalities to skirt the rules, naturally).
They are literally saying the opposite.
We didn’t cover that in ESL, because open to interpretation means open to interpretation. If what you’re trying to say in your comment was the admins intention then the language should’ve been: “Admin’s interpretation of the rules is the last word and will be judged in a case by case basis”. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s how laws and court systems work. Anyone can interpret laws as they see fit (see sov citizens) but when push come to shove, judges have the last word and the courts interpretation is the only valid interpretation of the law. Hence debate based trials, checks and balances. When rules are open to interpretation, they become useless as a tool for defining truth.
because open to interpretation means open to interpretation
And most people understands when a company says that. They mean:
“Admin’s interpretation of the rules is the last word and will be judged in a case by case basis”.
It’s just understood that a company always means “we can do what we want, deal with it”.
But this is not a company. What are you talking about?
But in a real sense, yes, the admins can do whatever they want. We as users have no power or recourse. They could just turn off the server tomorrow and that’s that.
But this is not a company.
I think we’re still have language issues
Yes, indeed we are still in have language issues is.
Any chance the relevant incident could be unpacked and used as a demonstration of how these changes would alter the outcome or encourage a different outcome?
As someone who only saw pieces of it after the fact, I am potentially in the dark here about the purposes and context of these changes.
That being said, from what I did see, it seemed very much like an instance admin imposing themselves and their superior power on a community when there were probably plenty of other more subtle action that could have been taken, where subtlety becomes vital for any issue complex and nuanced enough to be handled remotely well. I’m not sure I’m seeing any awareness of this in this post and the links provided.
For instance, AFAICT, the “incident” involved a discussion of if or how a domestic cat could eat a vegan diet. Obviously that’s not trivial as they, like humans, have some necessary nutrients, and AFAICT the vegans involved were talking about how it could be done, while the admin involved was basically having none of that and removed content on the basis that it would lead to a cat dying.
And then in the misinformation link we have:
We also reserve the right to remove any sufficiently scientifically proven MALICIOUS information posted which a user may follow, which would result in either IMMINENT PHYSICAL harm to an INDIVIDUALS PROPERTY, the PROPERTY of OTHERS or OTHER LIVING BEINGS.
In the context of cats and their food … which “living beings” are being harmed and who is encouraging or discouraging this harm?
Whether you’re vegan or not, this seems to me formally ambiguous and on the face of it only enshrines the source of the conflict rather than facilitating better forms of communication or resolution (perhaps there are things in the by-laws I’ve missed??).
Two groups can have exactly the same aim and core values (reduce harm to living beings) but in the complexity of the issue come to issue a bunch of friendly fire … that’s how complex issues work.
So, back to my original question … how exactly would things be done better?
We will be releasing a separate post involving that incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
Hi there, totally in the dark here. What was the incident?
Vegans saying that cats, which are obligate carnivores, can subsist on a vegan diet; admin removed it as misinformation. The vegan community then threw a fit over it.
Saying others are 100% wrong when there are scientific research that supports that cats can eat a plant-based diet with synthetic taurine, b12 and minerals is not very wise. It’s sound like a big false gotcha for a group society is biased against.
Sources:
-https://sustainablepetfood.info/
-https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252
-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253292
-https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132
-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X
-https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/9/57
Yeah, they’re 100% in the wrong here. Cats aren’t people, they can’t consent to your personal code of ethics. They’re meat-eaters by nature, and denying them of that is animal abuse. Good intentions don’t override your pet’s nutritional needs. Admins are right to remove any content that encourages animal abuse.
OK, so some counters:
- I mean, plenty of pet-keeping practices can count as some form of animal abuse but are readily tolerated.
- EG, It’s fairly common for cats to be prevented form hunting other animals like birds etc through bells on collars or even keeping them indoors. From what I’ve seen, this genuinely makes cats sad and bored … but it’s done a lot and for good reason as they’re really obligate hunters. There’s also how a lot of dog owners treat dogs too which frankly can be damn right heart breaking.
- “Obligate carnivore” doesn’t mean that much. They have nutritional needs which either can or cannot be met by various food production techniques.
- And it’s important to note that pet food is not a well regulated industry with high quality produce. AFAIU, cats mainly (or exclusively) require a single and very simple molecule, taurine, which is easily produced synthetically or artificially. Moreover, I’d wager that a lot of commercial cat food has synthetic taurine added to it rather than getting it from carnivorous sources (cuz it’d be cheaper), which is at least suggested by the linked wikipedia article (genuinely curious about this if anyone knows more).
- Additionally, cats probably require a certain balance of proteins and fats that might be difficult to reproduce from non-animalistic sources.
All up, pets are absolutely subjected to human codes of ethics and values … they’re pets and subjecting them to our needs, desires and demands is exactly what owning a pet is all about (for better or worse).
If you have problems with that, I personally understand, but modifying their diet without wanting to sacrifice their health is very much the type of thing that pet ownership is generally all about. The lines being drawn here seem to me to not be about the specific issue of whether a vegan cat diet is feasible … and merely talking about it a reasonable thing … but about how one feels about vegans in general.
On which, accusing vegans of animal abuse is certainly a choice. From what I’ve seen, any conversation about this from a vegan was always starting from a position of caring about the dietary requirements of cats (which may be more than what some pet food manufacturers and pet owners do) and being informed about them. Whether that’s what happened in the relevant incident, I’m not sure, but the bits I’ve seen certainly indicate that it could have been reasonable too.
Which all comes back to my original point … what is moderation to bring to such a conversation and situation and what are its aims?
Which all comes back to my original point … what is moderation to bring to such a conversation and situation and what are its aims?
Remove posts that have a serious potential to seriously harm cats, by making newer vegans believe it’s okay to feed cats a vegan diet?
The issue here is that nowadays these posts become information to others. That’s what the internet has become. People no longer read something like this, and then first talk to 2-3 vets about it before deciding, they read that “Yo totally fine to torture your cats, k” and then do it.
And it’s important to note that pet food is not a well regulated industry with high quality produce. AFAIU, cats mainly (or exclusively) require a single and very simple molecule, taurine, which is easily produced synthetically or artificially. Moreover, I’d wager that a lot of commercial cat food has synthetic taurine added to it rather than getting it from carnivorous sources (cuz it’d be cheaper), which is at least suggested by the linked wikipedia article (genuinely curious about this if anyone knows more).
As someone whose FwB works with pets professionally, it’s difficult to be more wrong, but granted that’s for my central european context. There are absolutely bad cat foods about, but even those are not truly dangerous for the cat involved. They might have a higher percentage of grain added, but you’re right in that to a degree this is doable for a cat.
Note however that many pure-grain or high-grain foods will be explicitly marked as “Not meant as a sole food item” over here, and have to be: They’re not a balanced nutritional diet. Even worse, some add sugar, and now we’re getting into truly shitty territory that sadly isn’t clamped down on hard enough, this gets added to make the food look and smell better to the owner, while being either irrelevant or usually bad for the cat (since they consume too many calories for the amount of nourishment they get). However, again, as a supplementary item it’d not be terminal or something.
And that’s kinda the thing here:
- Can you feed your cat vegan stuff? Absolutely, and in fact a large percentage of what they consume will be vegan, usually mixed into other foods. For example my cat currently has 30% vegetables in her main food (the other 70% is meat). The jelly food she gets for extra fluid intake is even 55% vegan components.
- Should you feed your cat a vegan diet? Absolutely not, because that’s just silly and also intentionally marked as “supplementary food only” whenever you were to buy vegan cat food, at least over here. For a reason!
It’s not a binary choice. Just use high-quality cat food. It’s that simple. Ask someone who works with this professionally for help. And yes, high quality food will be 50%+ meat. That’s supposed to tell you something.
“As someone whose FwB” is a new one for me. Hey buddy listen my FwB’s in the military kinda vibes
Thanks for the post! (Highly relieving compared to some of the abusive stuff some are hurling).
Remove posts that have a serious potential to seriously harm cats, by making newer vegans believe it’s okay to feed cats a vegan diet?
Removing posts is arguably a pretty severe act when applied to discussion. I don’t know what the original incident was (thus my original questions), censorship around “dangerous” topics doesn’t need to be absolute and runs the risk of being dogmatic I’d say.
EG, How easily persuaded are “young vegans” and what else can be done to ensure no false impressions are made? Is outright banning the conversations actually preventing damaging behaviour or encouraging it by burying the issue and pushing it into more niche environments?
Also, it’s not irrelevant here, and hopefully common ground, that the underlying motive on both sides is to reduce harm to animals.
As someone whose FwB works with pets professionally, it’s difficult to be more wrong …
I have to say that given all of the concessions or potential issues with the pet food industry you go on to detail, this line seems strange.
In the end I appreciate your expertise and effort here (a great deal actually), but I think the only thing you’ve really convinced me of is that this could be an interesting discussion without posing any risks to cats.
It’d be interesting to know how good/bad some mainstream/popular cat food is and how it’d stack up against a decent attempt at a plant-based version and how well or badly it could be done.
Which doesn’t mean I’m about to go torture my cats with an experimental diet. Not at all! Many vegans, IME, care about their food (and of course animals), and so I find a default concern of vegans going off to do something stupid kinda weird and probably condescending.
EG, How easily persuaded are “young vegans” and what else can be done to ensure no false impressions are made? Is outright banning the conversations actually preventing damaging behaviour or encouraging it by burying the issue and pushing it into more niche environments?
Yeah that’s an interesting point. I guess with good enough mod-tools, some sort of flag that shows up “Hey, please don’t base your decisions on health or XYZ on something you hear from people you don’t even know on the internet, just go and ask a professional please” would be neat instead of outright removal.
I have frankly no idea how good or bad the modding tools in Lemmy are, I just always hear they’re pretty bad. But I know some other sites do this, flag potentially misleading or questionable content wit ha warning.
I like how your main rebuttal to vegan cat food is “its just silly”. Appeals to intuition are surely substantial right?
This is purely shutting down a discussion based on emotional reasons, otherwise discussions about sexual abuse or child abuse would be banned as well “lest new gullible users think they might be suggestions”.
If you want to actually read about the current scientific discussion on the matter I suggest reading “Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen.”
I like how your main rebuttal to vegan cat food is “its just silly”. Appeals to intuition are surely substantial right?
🤦
I like how that is what you got from it.
But yeah, sure. To break it down further, if you require more input than “it’s silly as a concept” for this talk, or if you think of Jed Gillen as anything but a hack, you are neither mentally or intellectually adult enough to own a pet, in particular not a cat. Maybe a stone with glued-on wobbly eyes, and I’d be worried about that, too. Talk to an actual professional, geez. It’s not difficult.
Got any peer reviewed scientific evidence for your positions?
I feel sorry for your cat
Obligatory “I’m not a vegan,” but this comment seems like it’s at least partially mischaracterizing the issue.
Some of the comments removed seem to advocate for a vegan cat diet that specifically includes the amino acids and protein that cats need, albeit sourced in a vegan-friendly way:
I am also not a vet (go figure) but this seems reasonable on its face and lines up with the 5 minutes of Google research that I did. It sounds like not all vegan formulated cat food actually strikes the balance cats need and that this diet would need to be balanced very carefully, but it seems possible to do it in a healthy way, especially if done in concert with a vet and frequent checkups.
Yes, it is possible, with constant blood tests (which means monthly vet appointments and the corresponding stress for the cat) and a heap of knowledge.
it’s very easy to fuck this up to the detriment of the cat, and because of that every vet i’ve talked to about it said it is just too risky and stressful for the cat (and monthly bloodwork is costly too). Just putting the information “cats can be fed vegan” out is asking for trouble, because you can be sure that someone just does it without taking the necessary steps to make sure the pet is safe from harm. it is not even recommended to do BARF with cats, because it’s too easy to mess things up; there’s just not enough margin for errors to do it safely.
I agree with you but wanted to add that non vegan cat food has the same quality and nutritional value issues.
I think some people assume vegan cat food means feeding them whole foods prepared at home but thats ridiculous. It would be just as ridiculous to decide to start formulating your own cats nutritional needs with non vegan food.
Preparing your own animal food is its own subject entirely, and vegan and non vegan cat foods share a lot of the same processes and ingredients.
God damn. So that means theres a whole community of people whos cats are living their worst life, because some asshole adopted them and feels self rightous.
And those are the ones who set a bad example for vegans. I’m sure there are mild mannered non-asshole vegans out there. I’d even believe they were a silent majority. But MY interactions with vegans are always the loud pushy types who try to make you feel that YOU need to follow THEIR choices.
And to that type of person, I actually have an endless supply of middle fingers and a chronic drought of fucks to give. I tell them I’m going to eat THREE cheeseburgers now. One for the cheeseburger I was already going to eat. One for the cheeseburger they’re NOT eating, and one more just to make their veganism a net loss. Since I’d only be eating just the one if they weren’t getting in my face about being vegan.
Yup. Imagine eating supplements instead of normal food your whole life. It makes me sad. Poor animals.
Right … so talking about whether a vegan cat diet is possible is some form of intrinsically bad animal harming behaviour …
… but needlessly killing and eating cows to put up figurative middle fingers is … all good?
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No vegan would ever accept any degradation in their cats life just to make them vegan.
The only discussions are around maintaining a cats health and happiness while feeding them a vegan diet that contains all the same supplements non vegan food does.
Theres plenty of cats who just dont like the two vegan brands available and so thats that, they aren’t vegan.
Its absurd that you all think that vegans of all people would tolerate hurting an animal or reducing its quality of life in any way.
What do you all think vegan even means?
Its absurd that you all think that vegans of all people would tolerate hurting an animal or reducing its quality of life in any way.
What do you all think vegan even means?
Yea … they way some get abusive and accusatory against vegans or pro-vegan people around topics like this is really revealing. Strawman arguments, thin presumptions and generally unfriendly behaviour … all to avoid talking/thinking about a moral issue. You can tell that for some it’s a touchy issue that they’re not comfortable with because for so many other things plenty of people are happy to admit that they’re fallible and shitty, like we all are. But somehow this issue seems to get under people’s skin, which to me only indicates that there’s some serious cognitive dissonance going on.
people say stereotypes are damaging but I have literally never met a vegan IRL that was a decent person.
I know plenty.
The thing is, the ones you meet actively, as in, they make being a vegan a significant portion of their exterior presentation and lifestyle, they’re usually off the deep end, independent of being vegan.
You can see the exact same behaviour - just not about veganism - in modern alt right counterculture, religious fascists, etc. It’s always about pushing a narrative and a believe system, the specific system is almost irrelevant.
But OTOH, veganism without making it a religious cult is almost normal at this point, which is also why you would not actively notice it a lot. There’s nothing to actively notice, really.
It’s just the crazy people that make it weird, and then end up torturing dependent animals and stuff.
‘No True Scotsman’…
I think you misunderstand the argumentative fallacy there. Unless you mean that someone who isn’t pushing agenda is no true scotsman? Then that’s correctly used, but also the inverse of what I am saying.
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Aaah, nevermind. I see what you mean, I could have worded that better. It wasn’t meant as exclusionism, rather that of any subgroup, the part that does X, but is self-reflective about it and accepting of disparate opinions is not going to be remotely as visible, and hence by and large, you won’t notice that part actively.
This of how little you notice most catholics in daily life. I doubt you associate “is a catholic” with most people you interact with who are. You would not even think about assigning such a label, no matter which way.The people you associate with such an attribute are the ones that constantly push this attribute themselves, lacking the ability to reflect how this appears to others and alienates them. And it’s this very mental inability to consider a perspective of others that would also make you, say, feed your cat a vegan diet as a vegan out the inability to reflect that while for humans a vegan diet might be the correct choice (and even then there are exceptions of course) but this does not mean you can extend this to cats, unless the cats as a society decide this of their own. It’s their decision to make.
But it’s also exactly this kind of person where you remember that specific attribute. “Is strictly catholic”, “is vegan and nothing else it seems”, “exists only as an extra to their car”, etc etc.
How to not be taken serious by people - Vegan cat abusers edition
Yikes
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Yeah my thoughts exactly. And… “harm to living beings” is really thin ice. One could argue that not being vegan/vegetarian is by default harming living beings. I love my steak and would never abstain, but I’m very much aware that my succulent meal meant that some poor cow had to die.
Merely existing is harming living beings
Our bodies fight and kill bacteria all the time
Who decides what is malicious?
I occasionally go hunting and fishing. Is giving advice on either malicious? It definitely can lead to harm of a living being, but I don’t consider it malicious, while others think it’s barbaric and evil.
In the context of cats and their food … which “living beings” are being harmed and who is encouraging or discouraging this harm?
Not the point I imagine, the rule as written makes no requirement of being able to specifically identify who or how. It’s like Google AI suggesting you add glue to your pizza sauce. Is it likely that you, /u/maegul, would follow that advise? Hopefully not. But is it absolutely endandering to leave the information there and not just flat out delete it on the off-chance someone takes it serious? Of course!
Fun fact! Glue is put into the cheese on pizza slices for promotional purposes. It’s what gets them that nice stringing stretching cheese on video.
Okay so no jokes on the internet anymore then right.
Y’all need to follow your premises through mentally.
As noted in my post on the “moderation incident”, by adding more subjectivity to the rules, you are opening the door to even more instance moderator misconduct. There is already evidence of how that would go.
Rooki felt it right to intervene in the !vegan cat food thread (and got a pat on the back with the new rules made to justify their actions), then not only took no issue with comments like “Meat is not something diabetics need to worry about.” but also fueled the fire in the same thread by saying “To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died.”
So much for taking action against harmful dietary advice.
While I disagree with the stance the vegans took in this. The
modsadmins reaction to the situation was way out of proportion, and it definitely seems like you’re updating the ToS to justify what he did retroactively instead of addressing his behavior, which was way out of line.Don’t feel there are many people who actually use the phrase “free speech absolutist” these days, as a forward self-identification, who have much personal integrity or actual understanding of what that phrase might mean.
I didn’t consider admins any more qualified in parsing medical journals than mods are. I’ve got letters behind my name and am not supremely confident in that. That said, anything like a pro-ana community should be quickly purged.
I’ve got no idea about the context of the vegan drama though.
probably could have used a less loaded term than purging in relation to the pro-ana problem. lmao.
Well that would be pro-mia.
Technically, sure. But never let a technicality get in the way of a laugh.
We’ll be posting a response to that in the next 24-48 hours, just finishing reviewing with the team.
Is this response still in review?
Okay, specifically ignoring fediaf language because they’re a vet nutritionist with strong understanding of amino acid profiles and bioavailability I take it (and I’m talking about the trigger happy admin here) https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/vegetarian-diets/
You keep posting this but it doesn’t back up your stance at all really
If you read what the vegans said, they pretty much echoed exactly what was on that site. “It’s hard, it’s likely not worth it, it requires cooperation with your vet, it’s possible.”
Reading the website, the message is pretty clearly “don’t fucking do this but if you do you have to go to a professional.”
And your cat will still feel like shit
Another fun note, the only sources for that article are over 20 years old with the exception of one in like 2013 titled:
‘Homemade dog food recipes can be a risky business, study finds’ (15 July 2013)
…yyyeeeeaaaahhhh
Uh huh. Here’s a literature review from a vegan.
“But what about this biased source!”
Nah…. I did skim it though, and the conclusion doesn’t actually provide anything solid other than “regular commercial food also bad”
Really my take away from all of this to is to stop buying cat food and start bringing home rodents and birds for them to chow down on.
Apparently that organization in your link has no issue advising its possible to have a healthy vegan/vegetarian diet. Guess they aren’t afraid people will kill their cats over it.
A panel of experts providing data driven advice, who knew.
I am also interested in learning more about vegan drama
I’ve got letters behind my name and am not supremely confident in that.
The more you know about academic research, the less you trust something just because it’s academic research.
Like, even after peer review, it’s not uncommon to find out the peers who first reviewed it missed something or just flat out don’t know what they were reading.
It’s like my stats professor said:
Anyone can produce stats to show what they want, the hard part is getting clean stats and interrupting them without any bias.
Peer reviewed scientific sources for people talking about health stuff? I can understand modding out “cyanide makes everything taste yummy” but at the other side, this isn’t Wikipedia. It’s a discussion forum and a lot of the topics will be about users’ own experiences and perceptions. If you want to run an academic journal instead, this isn’t the right way to do it.
The parent post also offers no answer at all about what decision was reached regarding the c/vegan intervention and whether such things should be allowed to happen again. Is there any update about that?
Please see above. Thanks.
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I don’t see anything there about what (if anything) was absorbed from the c/vegan incident. If you’re still working on it, that’s fine, just say so, there’s not a huge rush. The original post instead seems to imply that some kind of decision was reached, but leaves it up to user detective skills to figure out what it is. I’m an outsider to c/vegan, I’m not out for anyone’s blood, but I saw the intervention as a good faith error that should explicitly be called out as one. Any resulting policy change should be designed to prevent similar errors going forward. If you’ve decided something different from that (i.e. that the intervention was valid and that you want to see more of the same), that’s fine, it’s your server, but please tell us in so many words so we can react accordingly.
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The same thing about the academic journals. “Encouraged” is one thing but it would help enormously if you tell us what the admins are going to do if someone posts based on direct observations, personal experience, etc. It’s well established now that the COVID-19 virus is transmitted through the air and that N95 respirators and HEPA air purifiers are hugely valuable preventive measures, but it took a ridiculously long time for health authorities to admit that fact (Science, Nov 2022). Thus in many cases, community awareness about health issues is ahead of the authorities and journals. We should be encouraging that, not trying to shut it down. (See for example r/ZeroCovidCommunity on Reddit).
Anyway, I’ve been under the belief that the instance admins are basically server operators or assisting the server operators, dealing with system maintenance and software problems, or sometimes, serious and obvious policy breaches like threats of violence. They aren’t supposed to be medical experts or pet dieticians, so (following Reddit, since Lemmy positions itself as a Reddit alternative) they should generally defer to community mods about discussions within communities. Community mods, at least, are supposed to have some kind of understanding of the topics under discussion.
If you’re saying that server admins should be able to override community mod decisions about discussions regarding stuff like pet diets, then fine, but again, tell us so we know what kind of environment we’re in.
Just because someone mods a community doesn’t mean they inherently have more understanding of a topic.
Everyone can have an opinion but Google-fu is not real research. Citing random websites that only support your view isn’t either.
If someone doesn’t like the administration of an instance they can find another one they agree with or spin up their own. Don’t complain you don’t like how something was handled just because you didn’t get your way when you don’t contribute anything to the maintenance or upkeep of the service.
They asked for clarity on the admin position, thats all.
The original post leaves a lot open for interpretation. There are a group of people who would leave over this decision, and they are just asking to be able to make a decision more easily.
I will say since this post was the admin team saying they did nothing wrong, that the followup specifically about the vegan post in question will be full of similar nonsense.
That’s the glory of the fediverse. If you’re going to caterwaul over a service that you don’t pay for and expect you have any sort of right to how the instance run you are probably best served finding an instance that aligns with you.
at least for now I have a right to express my opinion here. I never demanded the instance change. I’m sure most would leave rather than fight an admin team over something so trivial, theres plenty of other instances out there.
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I’m glad to see site-wide action taken against the spread of harmful disinformation.
It’s not the same thing, but IMO the best things the admins can do is establish a runbook of sorts of how to deal with these situations - because they’re not out of the realms of possibility.
Where I disagree with some is in the rules needing to be black and white. There are instances, say for example a self-harming support group or a community that deals with conditions with no medical cure. IMO this is where nuance is key, because people will share misinformation or procedures that could cause harm/illness. This is where a case by case basis is needed, and ultimately the “path of least harm” is where this will excel. Regardless, admins and mods should contribute to these runbooks for their case, so that there is an established plan that is transparent to all.
Thank you all for doing this.
Thanks, we’re trying to do our best.
Thanks for banning discussion? Gonna have to explain that one.
You know what would be in the news, if a vegan forced their cat to be vegan until it died.
You know how many stories youll find about that. About 1 and the cat survived.
Now compare that to stories of healthy vegan cats, youll find plenty of those. Usually the stories are written from a skeptic point of view but the stories are there.
Reading through your comments here, I wonder if you’re not better off seeing up your own instance of Lemmy somewhere?
There’s whole instances where vegans can hold onto each other to make sure they don’t get blown over by a stiff breeze
